An article for the extremely regarded Argentine publication Economía Sustentable reveals the extent of the failure of the GM wheat HB4. HB4 was marketed as drought-tolerant however can be tolerant to glufosinate, a herbicide that’s so poisonous to replica that it’s banned outright within the European Union and the UK, and closely discouraged or restricted in a number of different areas.

The writer, Karina Ocampo, begins her article by noting that on 11 June, Professor Raquel Lia Chan obtained the 2026 L’Oréal-UNESCO Worldwide Award for Ladies in Science in Paris “for remodeling basic plant biology into agricultural innovation by her discovery of genes and organic mechanisms that improve crops’ tolerance to environmental adjustments”.

Chan is a researcher and lecturer on the Nationwide College of the Littoral (UNL) and director of the Littoral Institute of Agrobiotechnology (CONICET-UNL), in Argentina. Her analysis has centered on the event of supposedly drought-resistant kinds of GM wheat, maize, rice and soy, of which the soy and wheat have been commercialised by the corporate Bioceres. The award has reignited debate over certainly one of her flagship developments, to which she has devoted years of her work: HB4 wheat, which has been criticised each in tutorial circles and by environmental and agricultural teams not just for its tolerance to glufosinate, but in addition for placing typical wheat in danger by cross-contamination.